The Canon EF 8-15mm f/4 L USM fisheye zoom lens

A review of using the 8-15
on a Canon 1Ds3 Mk3

Keith has been out and about, giving it a try on his Canon 1Ds Mk3 (full frame) DSLR.

There are lots of images in this overview, but do remember that you are seeing them (mostly) reduced to fit a web page and in JPEG format

This is not a formal lens test, it doesn't contain any detailed measurements on lens performance, although there are two MTF charts at the very end...

The main idea is to give an idea of what the lens is like to use, and hopefully give an idea as to the much greater range of uses it has that you might at first think.

Original article written: Summer 2011

Using a fisheye lens

A few years ago I purchased the Canon 15mm Fisheye lens.

It's an old design, first available in EF mount in 1987. The main giveaway is the non USM motor, so you hear a slight whirring sound as it focuses.

I was quickly impressed by the optical quality of the lens and its almost complete resistance to flare - important, since with a 180 degree field of view from corner to corner (on a FF body), the chances of getting the sun in your frame is quite high.

It became a standard item in my bag for architectural and interior photography, particularly when used in conjunction with the Fisheye Hemi PS plugin for altering the projection geometry of your images.

I'll come back to aspects of 'fixing' images later, but the 15mm has provided numerous great photos that have gone down particularly well with our clients (remember that for a lot of my commercial work, a client's opinion is the arbiter of success ;-)

Canon announced the new EF8-15mm lens in August 2010, and it's taken almost a year to actually appear.

It's a stop slower than the old 15mm, but the zoom means that I can go from a 173 degree corner to corner (filled frame) at 15mm, to a circular image at 8mm (180 degree circular FOV) Full specs at foot of article

Frame coverage

Comparing new and old - you can see more reflections from the old 15mm, a sign of better lens coatings in 2011 compared to 1987

The lens hood for the new lens is only useful at 15mm. Any less than 15mm and you can see it in the image.

The new lens cap has a clip attachment, making it a lot less likely to fall off than the old one.

The 8-15 has a very solid feel to it and is smooth in zoom and focus. The front element does move in and out a few millimetres during zooming.

As with most very wide angle lenses, give up on using filters unless you want to cut gelatine ones for the rear filter holder.

Sample images

For a quick comparison I took the camera out into the street.

Note the tripod legs at the very bottom of the 8mm view - 180 degrees gets a lot in.

Already I'm hearing 'but who wants circular images' - I'll come back to this, but first I want to have a look at some of the details.

How does it compare with the old 15mm?

Move your mouse over the image to see 100% crops of the same part of the frame.

Both images have had chromatic aberration 'tuned out' during the conversion from RAW using ACR and Photoshop.

Not that there is a lot with the new lens (mouse over image to see changes)

and just for good measure, 3 stitched shots from the TS-E17 (shifted up and down by 12mm)

'Fixing' images with software

Since I've used Fisheye Hemi with my 15mm, I wanted to see what it would do with the 8-15.

The shot below is at the 11mm setting.

Move your mouse over to see the effect of Fisheye Hemi's 'Full frame' setting (one I'd use with my old 15mm)

Move your mouse over the image below to see the effect of Fisheye Hemi's 'circular' setting.

With a bit of a crop, this makes for an interesting wide view.

At just over 11mm, I've a 180 degree field of view from edge to edge.

You can see the bridge I'm standing on.

Move you mouse over the image to see a processed view.

Note that with this image I've edited the lighting of the image a bit before applying the transformation.

Canon's own DPP software offers a number of distortion correction modes.

The Chromatic aberration and peripheral lighting adjustments work well (mouse over image to see), but it's perhaps the ones that alter geometry that people may want to try.

I know from using DxO Optics Pro that just attempting to turn a fisheye image into a rectilinear one can easily fail, so I wasn't surprised to see the emphasise linearity setting in DPP mash the edges of the image (mouse over the image to see some of the adjustment for this)

A more subtle alteration

Overall, the DPP options work well.

However, if I wanted these particular alterations, I'd probably use DxO optics Pro which has some more complex settings (that and I personally just don't much care for DPP as part of my workflow)

Here's the sort of correction options you get in DxO (this lens is not yet supported with specialist correction data)

Note that there are many more packages supporting geometry correction - we're Mac based so I've not tried many of the windows PC based options.

Conclusions

Buying an 8-15mm

We make a specific point of not selling hardware, but if you found the review of help please consider buying a lens, or any other items at all, via our links with Amazon or B&H

It focuses down to 15cm, which gives an interesting magnification of 0.39, and some very odd views.

If shots like below (Leicester market) were all this lens did, then I'd agree that it's a lens that you might quickly tire of.

However I know that by careful consideration of how you are going to make use of images, it's one that I'll be making use of in my professional work too.

The photo below, was taken with the old EF15 and corrected with the Fisheye-hemi plugin. - it's one of the venue's iconic images, and one that has paid for the old lens, in itself. I'm particularly looking forward to V2 of Fisheye Hemi, hopefully appearing later this year.

Three more photos from a recent visit to Wells Cathedral

Two 'fixed' with Fisheye-hemi and one at 8mm

View down the cathedral, from main entrance.

The scissor arches

Looking up in the chapter house

Update 2 - a portrait of Michael Westmoreland

Taken at the opening of his 80th birthday exhibition (more details). If you didn't know, Michael is one of the key figures in the history of panoramic photography.

MTF charts (from Canon)

More Info

The views in this article represent those of Keith Cooper.
Keith is always happy to discuss matters raised in his articles. You can Email UsNorthlight Images prides itself on its independence when giving advice. We do not sell hardware or software and have no direct commercial links with any of the software or hardware vendors that may be mentioned here. See our Review Policy for more information.

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